


Stamp and Mark

by darkrogue1 (Lily_Haydee_Lohdisse)



Series: Mister Zero, Crocodile Master [4]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen, M/M, magical claims, magical names, signare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 06:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12953556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_Haydee_Lohdisse/pseuds/darkrogue1
Summary: Nightingale can recognise an individual practitionner by theirsignare, who has trained them and sometimes who developped the spell.The implications of that in regard to the Little Crocodiles and their goals.





	1. Learning the signs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [momotastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/momotastic/gifts).



> for Momotastic  
> I know it's not quite magical obligation, but still...

Thomas Nightingale notices quite fast that he can tell wizards apart when they cast the same spell. In the different parts of the Empire, the Newtonian wizards have let their _signare_ be permeated by the local flavours - and their own personality - and from one side of the Globe to the other, the same spell won't have quite the same echo.  
  
He discovers he can detect someone's teacher in their magical signature almost by accident. One day, when a _forma_ reminds him of such or such person, he makes a remark of it. And when the answer he gets is : "Why, it was him who taught me that spell!", he marvels in delight and stores the knowledge, understanding he might be onto something.  
  
When he gets back, he can do it. He notices the teachers he had in the new wizards he sees, he is almost always right. "Extraordinary!" they say. But no, Nightingale thinks, it is only a matter of experience and paying attention.  
  
They don't believe him.  
  
Maybe David does, after some experiments, but he isn't interested. There is no magical application or further theory to be gained from it and it remains only a curiosity, a further proof of the Nightingale's extraordinary difference.  
  
After that it doesn't matter.  
  
Magic is dying. There are no more students, no more new spells, no more wizards either, the skill goes forgotten.


	2. At the end of the rope

Nightingale never expected to find out that he is able to tell of a wizard's education to the second generation.  
  
That discovery is a shock, and he is glad to have other things to worry about, like where he puts his feet, what he touches or does.  
  
He is grateful for the climber harness encasing him, binding him, a constant reminder of Peter's presence at the other end of the rope.  
  
In Dr Moreau's Strip Club, as his apprentice calls it, he never expected to be able to pick Geoffrey Wheatcroft's trace as a teacher, and he certainly didn't anticipate the threads intertwined all over the place, screaming 'This is David Mellenby's legacy'.  
  
Nightingale feels awful after that, nauseated and furious. He doesn't know how David was involved. If this is - a worst case scenario - him alive and teaching Wheatcroft and the crocodiles, or if - not that much better if you ask him - those people are perverting the past research of Nightingale's dear friend.  
  
Whoever they are, with those strings and threads he senses anyway, he intends to find them, bind them and make them pay.


	3. To claim and proclaim

Ever since the discovery of George Trenchard's remains, Nightingale feels uneasy. The more they discover about the crocodiles and their plans the more the feeling grows.  
  
His intuition had screamed at him when he had seen the corpse. Unforgivable! Taboo! But he had said nothing. He had no proof after all. No other body, nor a powerful enough magical artefact, no _vestigia_ of any kind. But this felt like magical theft. As if someone had tried to absorb the magic of a powerful magical being through Trenchard's body, using it as a fuse for any excess power.  
  
His student, Peter, has his magic growing, strong, wild, and he considered helping him channel it once, in the forge. This is what it feels it could come to, for him, if Peter's power should grow uncontrollable, should he fail when trying to harness it for Peter's own safety. He still feels the echo of Peter's fire signature in his blood, revived each time the young man casts a spell in his presence.  
  
This is no spell work, but Peter wouldn't need a spell to set him on fire.  
  
He didn't say anything at the time. Those are but conjectures, an unproven theory. Besides, if he had proof he would _have_ to leave everything else to track them down actively. Stealing magic from a living thing is an Unforgivable thing after all. With only him remaining, with the Black Library to guard, he can't afford this right now. He hopes that if he is right, they will come to him instead.  
  
In the meantime, his student is in danger because of what he is. If this is the crocodiles' aim, he should be protected.  
  
Nightingale wonders if he should claim Peter now as his. Put his own mark on him. For a moment he thinks of the shameful pink triangle he never wore and of how foul the association with him would seem to some in this demi-monde, but if his fears are proved, Peter should be protected.  
  
He still hesitates but as time passes, the feeling grows stronger.  
  
Better for Peter to be marked prematurely with the brand of Nightingale’s starling than in the end, irrevocably, with the one of David’s Star.


	4. Soldier's Oath

When Sky is murdered, with all the information Peter has collected on the crocodiles' intent to gather power, with all the evidence he has of their previous uses of magic, Nightingale knows his past has caught up with him.  
  
He remembers the threads of David's legacy on the crocodiles' _signare_ \- the perversion of his friend work, and feels the anger grow again, cold as steel in his blood.  
  
His oath to bring them to justice as a soldier is an easy one to make. Suddenly he feels he is at war again, as if he had never left it.  
  
His previous work was left unfinished.  
  
Those are still remains of the place called Ettersberg.


End file.
